Charlotte Catholic football coach Matthew Reilly is leaving after one season

Charlotte Catholic will have a new head football coach this fall.

Cougars coach Matthew Reilly informed the team on Thursday that he would not be returning. He’s leaving to take a job at St. Xavier in Cincinnati, Ohio. Reilly graduated from the school in 2009. He’ll be coaching linebackers under head coach Steve Specht, who coached Reilly in high school.

“He was a hero to me growing up and I’m excited to be on the field coaching with him,” Reilly said. “If I had to leave Catholic, that’s the only place I would’ve left for.’

Reilly, 32, was named head coach in December 2022. He was the school’s third head coach in 50 years. Reilly was head coach for one season, in the fall of 2023.

“It came out of nowhere,” Reilly said of the job change. “I was not looking for something. I love the Catholic community but I got a chance to go back home to Cincinnati and teach and coach at my alma mater. I’ve got five siblings there and my parents live there, too. So as much as I love it here and will be sad to leave the football and girls lacrosse team (where he’s been an assistant for nine years), to get a chance to go back to where I have family and where I went to school is too much to pass up.”

At Catholic, Reilly replaced Mike Brodowicz, recently named one of Charlotte’s best high school football coaches of the past 40 years.

Brodowicz led the Cougars to five state championships in nine years. Reilly, who grew up in Ohio, was Brodowicz’s offensive coordinator in the 2022 season. A few years before that, Brodowicz named Reilly as the school’s head junior-varsity coach.

Brodowicz told The Observer that he saw something special in the young coach. Reilly was 25-0 in three seasons on JV, and in the 2022 season, he was primarily responsible for the new shotgun-style offense Catholic employed.

Since Jim Oddo came to the school in 1973 as head coach, Catholic has favored a Wing-T style, run-heavy offense.

“He’s a really creative offensive mind,” Brodowicz said of Reilly last year. “He’s got to fill in a couple of defensive coaches, and I’m going to be around to mentor. I’ll be behind the scenes helping out any way I can.”

Last season, Charlotte Catholic finished 9-4 under Reilly and reached the second round of the N.C. 4A playoffs before losing to eventual state champion Weddington.